If anyone had any doubts of Johny Hendricks’ intentions for what he wants next, he put those to bed pretty quickly.

Hendricks is coming off a one-punch knockout of Martin Kampmann at UFC 154 that he assumed cemented himself as the top contender for welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre, who defended his title the same night.

But with all kinds of talk of a potential superfight between St-Pierre and Anderson Silva, as well as St-Pierre trainer Firas Zahabi recently saying he believes Nick Diaz should be the next welterweight test for GSP, Hendricks suddenly may be feeling like he’s on the outside looking in.

But no matter what comes next for St-Pierre, though, Hendricks is willing to wait for his next fight until that next fight has him staring across the octagon from the champ.

“I’m not going to fight unless it’s for a belt,” Hendricks on Friday told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio). “Nothing else matters but the belt. My last three fights were guys in the top five, and I finished two of those three fights. I stated my claim. My stock’s really high right now, and the only thing left is to get a shot at that belt.

“I really want a belt. They don’t come around that often, and I feel like I’ve done enough to earn a shot, and that’s pretty much all I’m thinking of right now. I’m training for a five-round fight, and that’s it.”

And with that, Hendricks (14-1 MMA, 9-1 UFC) put his foot down. If St-Pierre fights Silva, “Bigg Rigg” will wait, and he’ll wait as long as it takes for his next fight to be for the title.

Hendricks has won five straight, and in two of his past three he’s stopped top-five welterweights with just one punch. Kampmann went down in 46 seconds courtesy of his left hand. And at UFC 141, Jon Fitch was dropped in just 12 seconds – with that same now-famous left.

But then there’s the business of the St-Pierre camp being interested in the fight against Diaz that was scheduled to happen more than a year ago before a St-Pierre injury put him on the sideline, setting up Diaz-Carlos Condit for the interim title. And after that fight in February, Diaz was suspended for a year after a positive drug test.

And that has Hendricks equally perplexed, that St-Pierre or his camp perhaps are trying to work their way around him.

“He’s trying to keep money from my kids,” Hendricks said. “If I win that belt and take it from him, my life changes. He’s trying to not give me the fair shot. That’s crazy to me to think this guy is trying to control my future. That makes me want to win that much even more.”

Hendricks said he believes it comes down to the St-Pierre team believing a Diaz fight is one they can win, but a Hendricks fight is one that could give them some trouble.

“Here is a guy is trying to pull out a curveball saying, ‘We really don’t think we can win with this guy, but we think we can beat Nick Diaz.’ That’s what it sounds like to me,” he said.

Though the UFC has not told him anything definitively, and St-Pierre has been on a vacation since his win over Condit, his first fight in nearly 19 monhts, Hendricks believes, ultimately, the UFC and St-Pierre will make the right decision.

In his mind, that’s a fight with him as the No. 1 contender, not Diaz for his first fight after a loss to Condit and a yearlong suspension.

“I think I’m going to be fighting GSP in six months – April or May,” he said. “I want GSP, and nothing else matters. Nobody else is in the equation in my mind. But hypothetically, as long as it takes (to get GSP is how long I’ll wait). You only get so many opportunities to fight at the top level and stay at the top level.

“I can’t keep fighting and being the No. 1 contender for years. There has to be a time to take a stand, and I feel like now is that time.”

For complete coverage of UFC 154, stay tuned to the UFC Events section of the site. And for more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, watch the UFC Rumors section of MMAjunkie.com.

MMAjunkie.com Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at noon ET (9 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by “Gorgeous” George Garcia, MMAjunkie.com lead staff reporter John Morgan and producer Brian “Goze” Garcia. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.

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